By Andrew Coen
Lawrence was one of 44 districts to be recognized for closing the achievement gap of black and Hispanic students and their higher-performing classmates while simultaneously raising the average proficiency rates of the student groups being compared.
Lawrence was the only district in the state to be recognized for narrowing the achievement gap between black and white students, and was one of 18 statewide to close the gap between Hispanic and white students in the national report.
The recognition by Standard & Poor's comes two years after Lawrence High School was listed by the State Education Department as a school in need of academic progress in math as a result of 25 black students and 23 students with disabilities failing to meet state standards. Achieving proficiency in reading and math for all students by 2014 is one of the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2002.
"We have been working on this achievement gap and looking at our Hispanic and black kids very carefully and making sure they are getting what they need," said Michelle L. Lineal, Lawrence's assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. "We still have a long way to go but I'm very, very pleased."
As part of the criteria recognized in the report, districts must reduce the achievement gap in overall reading and math proficiency rates by at least 5 percentage points between the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years, while simultaneously raising the scores of both of the subgroups being compared over this same period.
Lawrence closed the achievement gap by 11.7 percent between black and white students and by 9.2 percent between white and Hispanic students, according to data in the report.
Lineal attributed the improved results to the district aligning the curriculum with state standards, setting benchmarks at each school, studying data more closely to determine why certain students weren't meeting state standards and tightening the supervisory practices of the teachers.
"Our building principals have been working very closely with our teachers," said Lineal. "We look at how all our kids perform and ask questions about how they can do better."
Lawrence showed improvement on last year's fourth-grade English Language Arts test, jumping 15 percentage points, from 69 percent to 84 percent meeting state standards.
District 15 students also demonstrated improvement in math results, with eighth-graders raising their scores 11 percentage points, from 58 percent to 69 percent meeting standards set by the state, while fourth-graders' math scores rose from 86 to 89 percent.
"The [school] board is delighted with the report," said Lawrence Board of Education President Frank Parise. "It's terrific news."
"Closing the achievement gap is one of the most persistent challenges in American education today," said William Cox, executive managing director of Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services. "Given the complex nature and extreme difficulty in closing these gaps, Standard & Poor's believes it is important to pay tribute to those school districts that have made progress in this area."
Nine of the 44 districts in the state recognized for closing the achievement gap are on Long Island. The other Long Island districts to be recognized on the national report in addition to Lawrence include East Hampton, East Islip, East Meadow, Hall Hollow Hills, Hicksville, Levittown and Malverne.
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